Rd 3 vs Western Bulldogs @ Marvel - Match Thread

[neilfws]

Apologies if this has already been answered, what was the reason for team wearing black arm bands last evening? (could find anything on the Club website).

Sydney Swans on Twitter: "Tonight we will wear black armbands for former South Melbourne player Bernie Jeffrey who passed away last year"

Vale Bernie Jeffrey

[KTigers]

I've noticed there seems to be a few amateur statisticians among the ranks of the RWO contributors. May I suggest it's time to do away
with all this focus on unimportant things like kicks, marks and even goals and behinds and highlight the number that really counts, the
ratio of all posts on RWO that relate to one contributors concern for the football playing ability of one particular hair-banded player.
It's got to be approaching 20% or 25% surely.

[dejavoodoo44]

For an interesting comparison, the Swans were beaten by Hawthorn last year in round 13. In that game we were also coming off back to back 6 day breaks, we lost the free kick count 26-10, and we fumbled a lot and looked lethargic.

The AFL have put the Bulldogs in the box seat with their starting fixture, giving them a Wednesday followed by consecutive Thursdays, so they still have extra rest days in the bag. They have 3 more Friday games through round 9. So that makes 6 prime fixture spots in 9 weeks. The AFL can't let them fall out of contention so early in the season. We were destined to lose this game no matter what If we had managed to win, despite all the help from the fixture and the umps, the AFL would have slapped a trading ban on us, so we should be happy to take only the loss of one game.

The AFL seem upset that we were able to rebuild on the run and have come back into flag contention after only 2 years out of the finals, while so many Melbourne clubs spend more than a decade in the wilderness before rebounding up the ladder.

Yes, during the first half, I was definitely thinking about that ugly Hawthorn game. So I suppose if you want to look on the bright side, the fact that we launched a comeback last night and almost snatched victory, is a definite improvement on last year.

And while I haven't really looked into it, if two six day breaks in succession are a genuine problem, then the AFL should be able to make them unnecessary, by getting rid of Thursday night football.

[dimelb]

Yes, the umpiring was woeful.
But we are not in a position to change that. Our two huge mistakes were: 1. Repeated Hail Mary kicks, and 2. Not using hard flat kicks to players who have thrown off the opposition, while the Fairypuppies did it repeatedly.

[barry]

Our midfield got a bit brutalized last night. Thats going to happen, because they are young and not as matured bodied as the bulldogs. Same thing might happen against Melbourne.
Hickey must have been carrying an injury coming in, because English dominated him, and we only got back in the game once Amartey started rucking.

It will be interesting what we do if hickey is out for a while. Going in with a lesser ruck (Amartey or Ladhams) might necessitate Kennedy coming back into the midfield to give us an extra strong body in there.

The bulldogs players have incredible bursts of acceleration which gets to a tackle faster, closes down space, and enables a break away. Sure, they also throw it, push us in the back, get umpires assistance, and probably steal loose change from their grandmothers, but that speed is hard to combat. It makes what is an ordinary team, look good.

Our backline is probably the best going around at the moment. Forward line has some worries.

Form that game.
Backs: 10/10
Centre: 4/10 - out muscled.
Ruck: 2/10 - Ordinary.
Forwards: 6/10 - Didnt get many chances, but never looked dangerous.

[KSAS]

Sydney Swans on Twitter: "Tonight we will wear black armbands for former South Melbourne player Bernie Jeffrey who passed away last year"

Vale Bernie Jeffrey

Thanks neilfws.

[crackedactor 01]

Yes, the umpiring was woeful.
But we are not in a position to change that. Our two huge mistakes were: 1. Repeated Hail Mary kicks, and 2. Not using hard flat kicks to players who have thrown off the opposition, while the Fairypuppies did it repeatedly.

We are in a position to change the bias umpiring. I was glad to see the subject is finally being talked about in the media via TV and radio. If enough people mention this one way umpiring the AFL will be forced to make changes. Three things are certain in life: Death/Taxes/and the Bulldogs getting twice the free kicks that the Swans receive. I know we played poorly but we should not have to put up with this disgraceful umpiring.

[stevoswan]

Indeed, and as I always say in these discussions, I don't believe that that free kicks have no effect. The question is, how much effect do they have, especially when compared with the effect of all the other things that happen during a game. That's a really interesting question to me and I don't think it's addressed by a simple focus on counts.

If an umpire made a terrible decision, 30 seconds to go, gifting a goal to a team less than a goal down, I agree there'd be just cause for outrage! But I think that's a rare event, and a different kind of outrage to the kind generated by free kick counts and differentials.

You have to realise that the count is just the final piece of evidence that comes after witnessing all those frees....and the free's that weren't given.

Witnessing the same situation get adjudicated differently, depending on the jumper worn.

Witnessing where on the field soft frees are paid (never in front of goal for us).

When a count is so glaringly different after witnessing such injustice, it will get attention, it will get focus.

True, it's not the be-all and end-all of whether a game has been umpired 'fairly' but coupled with visual evidence during the game, it can be a fair indicator of where the umpires heads were at.

As for how much it actually effects the game, well.....in an 11 pt game (or a 5 pt game with 60 seconds left), three soft or non existent frees in front of goal to one team is the difference between winning and losing.

Add to that the momentum killing effect of a well timed bad free (or series of them) plus the physical and mental energy sapping effect of relentless injustice.....and yes, I think the count and how it is arrived at has a huge effect on the result.

A more realistic count (based on what we saw in last nights match) of say 25 to 20, even in the Fairypups favour would have seen us win this game, I have no doubt.....even playing as bad as we did.

Having said that, a more even count would have seen us gain more momentum at crucial times, gain confidence and play better than we eventually did.

So IMO, free kicks can have a huge influence on the outcome of games.....does 2016 not ring any bells for you?

[Blue Sun]

Another Bulldogs armchair ride. Par for the course.

[waswan]

Probably already been said

I thought Horse said in his presser that Ladhams was coming back from minor setback during preseason and made it sound like he needed some conditioning

Did i hear that ?
I saw what Healy wrote about Ladhams, he is usually in the know

[giant]

Well, that was awful. Eerily reminiscent of 2016 GF except we played pretty awfully and certainly deserved to lose - but just as in 2016, the umps certainly made sure of that.

Two more gripes:
- is that the worst commentary team in Australian sport? You could have plucked 6 people at random from the stands and you would have got (a) more familiarity with the players, (b) better insights and (c) more diversity. How can 7 have a team of white Melbourne-based males in 2022?
- I still for the life of me don't understand the ruck infringement rules - given how important the centre square is, these has to get sorted.

So, let's quickly get to the positives:
- loved the way Chad responded after a desperately awful first half and (to a much lesser extent) James Rowbottam as well
- Amartey got better as the night wore on (my goodness English was good all night though)
- thought the defence stood up OK all things considered

Let's mark that one down to a young team dealing with a #Buddy1000 hangover and move on.

[giant]

Well that was horrible.

Yeah the umpires stank (yes again), but so did our entire team (Blakey excepted) - and Horse MAY have been outcoached.

Face it when your rucks are being towelled up by Tim English, FFS, then something is clearly very, very wrong.

My match lowlight actually involved Tim, not the mark he took over Buddy, but the comments made by Hamish McLaughlan came out with.
One commentator says: "Whatever happens for the rest of Tim English's career, he took a hang over Buddy" - another says "Only a few an say that" and then HM comes out with "There's a 1,000 players that Buddy can say that about"
The inhabitants of RW0 are pretty one eyed Swans fans, but would anyone of us suggest that Buddy's taken a 1,000 hangs on other payers?

Why not celebrate Buddy's qualities rather than making nonsensical claims. Might as well celebrate Barry Hall for his even temperedness, Warwick Capper for his humility, and Andrew Dunkly for his exquisite kicking syle.
It's the sort of fabrication which will make a proper retrospective so difficult when #23 retires.

To be fair to I think it was Jason Bennett who made the ridiculous 1000 mark claim, I reckon by that stage he realised his fellow commentators were just barracking for the Dogs and he was desperately trying to even things up if only for his own integrity. That piece of commentary also featured one of them noting that if the ball had got out the back it was a certain goal to Buddy. Where did he think English had come from? The roof? As I've mentioned elsewhere, that has to be close to Australia's worst sporting commentary team - a complete embarrassment.

[giant]

Don't you think though that it is significant when a team effectively doesn't get pinged for free kicks for an entire half of footy and
the other does (the count was 18-3 in second & third quarters)? For that period the teams were basically being judged by different rules.
Three infringements by the Dogs in an hour of footy! We all know that is not humanely possible. And yet the umpires saw it that way.

That's almost exactly what happened in 2016. For two quarters, the same rule was adjudicated differently depending on which jumper you wore. Even if it's subconscious, it has to be wrong. [And yes we were awful and didn't deserve to win.]

[Faunac8]

I agree with you Giant the commentary last night was cringeworthy and so Viccentric that I was yelling at the TV for them to actually commentate rather than speculate.
My wife hates midweek games. ????
To be in the game with a minute to go was , given how badly we played a great effort. I was concerned with some of the poor turnovers from our defence in the first quarter and I know some posters rated the performance of our defence quite highly but that put us behind the eight ball right from the start.
Definitely not a performance that warrants wholesale changes or anguish from us supporters.
It’s only round 3 and we will continue to improve as the season progresses.

[waswan]

cheers